First paragraph:
In November 2002, the 'moderate-Islamist' Justice and
Development Party (Adalet ve Kalknma Partisi; AKP) came to
power in Turkey to form the first single-party government in
11 years. With 34 percent of the votes, the party won nearly
two-thirds of the seats in the parliament owing to the
election system that imposes a 10 percent national threshold
for representation. The AKP was the recipient of a
substantial number of protest votes by large numbers of
electors who were adversely affected by the dismal economic
conditions that prevailed in Turkey after the former ruling
coalition led the country into its worst ever economic
crisis. While the centre-left Republican People's Party was
the only party other than the AKP to enter the parliament,
members of the former coalition suffered the heaviest
losses, as their combined vote share dropped by about 39
percentage points (to 14.7 percent) in the three and a half
years following the April 1999 elections. This was the first
time in Turkey that ruling parties had been totally wiped
out in parliament.

Last Paragraph:
As far as the economic voting issue is concerned, we found
evidence that economic evaluations play a significant role
in party choice alongside the non-economic factors. Our
earlier finding based on the 2002 data was that those who
have been adversely affected by the economic crisis of 2001
were likely to vote for the AKP, hence punishing incumbent
parties of that period. The situation in 2003 is that those
who make optimistic evaluations about the state of the
economy are more likely to vote for the AKP. Thus, economic
voting is present in Turkey not only in the sense that
unsuccessful incumbents are punished, but also in the sense
that successful incumbents are rewarded. Future research is
likely to shed light on whether this pattern was specific
only to the relatively short period between the two surveys,
or whether it applies over a longer period of
time.